The Experience: Our First Home

[summersann 6]

3 colors?! Cream, red and ???

Blue! I quite like the blue one actually!

Im loving every pics that you posted here! including your cat and dog!!

Thank you thank you

Where is this dear? mind sharing?

An Huat. Along Zion Road (if I'm not mistaken). It's opposite Great World City. I found the tiles there slightly pricier (as compared to Unlimited), but they do seem to have a wider selection.

[summersann 6]

Hahaha, looks like someone is enjoying the stove more than we do.

Meanwhile, meet the two new members of the family for the next month or so. Cookie and Milk, my foster kittens

[Makanology 29]

Haha perhaps should rename them as Cookies and Cream. Both are so beautiful!

[mrmerry 2]

summersan..... heh where u get your cutlery from.. so pretty. think me wifey will love them. ESP the round coasters

[bleucheeze 1]

The kittens are cute! Your cat has more meow company

[mishmish 7]

Hahaha, looks like someone is enjoying the stove more than we do.

Meanwhile, meet the two new members of the family for the next month or so. Cookie and Milk, my foster kittens

Love your smeg induction cooker! Love your kittens even more!

[tessina 9]

Wow you have SOOO many pets!

[summersann 6]

Haha perhaps should rename them as Cookies and Cream. Both are so beautiful!

Haha, yeah that was the original idea, but Cream doesn't sound so nice on its own leh. So I felt bad for giving him a bad name just to fit the "concept", hahaha

summersan..... heh where u get your cutlery from.. so pretty. think me wifey will love them. ESP the round coasters

Which coasters are you referring to? Our cutlery is from all over, some ikea, some Francfranc, some from vintage lifestyle stores, some from overseas.

The kittens are cute! Your cat has more meow company

Hahaha yeah kittens are always cute. But my cat gets tense around them. I guess all cats are like that when first introduced to new cats

[summersann 6]

Love your smeg induction cooker! Love your kittens even more!

I love my induction cooker too! Didn't like that the zones were on top of each other, but super liked the knobs and didn't see such knobs on many of the induction cookers we saw, so we caved

Wow you have SOOO many pets!

hahaha, well technically, the two kittens are not mine. Just helping to foster them till they get a bit older and are ready for adoption!

[potatoes 0]

Hahaha, looks like someone is enjoying the stove more than we do.

Meanwhile, meet the two new members of the family for the next month or so. Cookie and Milk, my foster kittens

Nice n lovely kittens......the names reminded me of my guinea pigs pair butter and cookies....heehee Edited May 12, 2013 by potatoes

[summersann 6]

Haha nice names, potatoes! We have guinea pigs too, but they're called Meatball and Mac. Jr. Hahaha

So on another note, a friend asked me for ID recommendations, and it reminded me that our search for an ID was rather tedious because we could never find much about the IDs we were interested in, and what we could find were often mixed reviews. The firm we went with eventually had good reviews overall, but we didn't know much about the "after-sales" service, because I noticed not a lot of people write about that once their renovations are complete and they've moved in.

Since we're still somewhat in contact with the IDs we engaged, I hope this review on their "after-sales" service helps anyone considering them.

Our IDs were quite contactable throughout the renovation process, which was something we were grateful for because of all the horror stories we read about unresponsive contractors/IDs. They didn't take long to respond to any of our queries (we would get answers within 1-2 days).

Now I guess this is human nature - the same responsiveness did not keep up once the final cheque was handed over.

We continued to spot things here and there that needed rectification, and within the first 2-3 weeks after moving into our new place, our IDs were still pretty responsive and would reply us within the day or by the next day. They would arrange for their contractors to come down and fix whatever we needed fixing within 2 weeks of our notifying them of the problem. That was much appreciated.

After that first month of moving in, we naturally spotted less things that needed rectification. But once in a while, we still had a query or two about certain things. We would inform our IDs as we usually do, but this time, we'd have to send them another message or two to remind them before we got a reply. After two or three such incidents, we have since decided to stop asking them anything since it's slightly unpleasant to have to be reminded each time that we're no longer a priority (of course, our IDs didn't say that to our face, but their change in responsiveness implies so).

I guess this is expected since IDs and contractors are always busy with projects - once they're done with yours and have taken all the money, they move on to focus on other projects that are still bringing in $. (on that note: please do not hand over the final cheque until you're satisfied with the work done!) The good thing about our IDs was: they never pressed us for payment. We'd hand over each cheque only after we're satisfied, and our IDs were never pushy about payment (of course, don't exploit this and take advantage of your ID/contractor because then things may turn ugly ).

So anyway, I don't know if this 90-degree change in our IDs' service will continue to worsen as time passes, since we've chosen not to contact them unless absolutely necessary anyway (i.e. a window fell out/a door fell off/a tile dropped off). But at least for the first month after we moved in, the "after-sales" service was good and efficient.

Hope this helps someone!

[mishmish 7]

This is very useful. Thank you!

[summersann 6]

For those who are considering getting a Samsung TV, here's a cautionary tale.

The Samsung TV we bought for my mom suddenly broke down about 2 days ago, and we called their customer service to arrange for a technician to come down to take a look. We were given the 2-4pm appointment slot on Saturday (today). We waited till 3.30pm and decided to give customer service a call, and they told us to wait till 4pm before calling back again if the technician has yet to show. So we waited till 4.30pm, and the technician calls us himself to tell us that he's running late and will be at our place by 5pm. At 5.30pm, we had to call customer service again (because the technician called us on our land line and we don't have Caller ID), only to be told that the technician will come at 6pm. As nice as we try to be, it's ridiculous that we've been waiting since 2pm, only to have to wait some more. The service staff on the line had the cheek to tell us that delays happen. Since we knew there was a 3-5pm appointment slot, we asked what happens to those people. The staff stuns us further by admitting that the technician may have gone to the house that had the 3-5pm slot because it was "nearer" to where he may have been previously. He then tells us that the technician should be over by 6.30pm. So at 3.30pm, we're told to wait till 4pm, and at 4.30pm, we're told to wait till 5pm, and at 5.30pm, we're now told to wait till 6.30pm.

And the staff has the nerve to tell us that they will be willing to reschedule for us if we can't wait for the technician. The next appointment is Monday. So now he wants us to waste another day waiting for the technician to show up?

We try to be accommodating whenever we can, but this is ridiculous. It's 6.13pm. This technician better show up, or the service staff is going to have an epic customer complaint story to share with his colleagues on Monday.

Edited May 18, 2013 by summersann

[mishmish 7]

Aiyo, we were aiming a Samsung TV.. did they turn up in the end?

[summersann 6]

Aiyo, we were aiming a Samsung TV.. did they turn up in the end?

Yeah, the technician turned up. He said he got to our area but didn't know which block we were in because the company didn't give him the block number and he only had the postal code (but block numbers are in postal codes -_-), so he went to the next location instead.

Our TV hasn't been fixed because the problem decided to disappear when the technician switched it on. This always happens to us! Bad electronics luck He told us to take a picture next time it happens (apparently we're not the first family with this same problem). He passed us his mobile number so it's easier to contact him straight in future.